Inexorable
by Fiercest
Summary: Because the women you meet tend to be every bit as stubborn as you are - Toshirou


Inexorable

**A/N:** **YUS! I did it my peoples! I did a Toshcentric type fic…and in second POV too. This is for my new friend Lauren who loves this POV and requested it…sorta XD**

**To make it clear guys, this centric oneshot drabbles are part of the Innen!verse. It's not AU, it's the bleach!verse still, but it's my idea of five years after the series starts.**

**Included in the Scroll of Innen Series is:**

**Chapter Fics:  
Serendipity**

**Oneshots:  
A Lover  
Closure  
My Butthead  
Himecentric  
Confessions  
Her Comes the Sun  
Wake Up  
Penance  
A Sister  
**

**All of these can be found on my profile and they all take place throughout or before **_**Serendipity**_**. Not in order of publishing but in chronological order that they take place in the series, though technically **_**Wake Up**_** and **_**Here Comes the Sun**_** could take place at any time.**

_**Inexorable**_** takes place later on…at a point I haven't quite gotten to in **_**Serendipity**_** but I'm getting there.**

**You don't have to read all of them to understand them. You don't even have to read them in order.**

**Lastly I suggest you read **_**Serendipity**_** first.**

**Disclaimer: Zilch.**

Inexorable

You lean against the doorframe of the flimsy shack, holding the reed curtains aside so as not to obscure your view of the sleeping girl, who was curled up into a tiny ball, clutching a tattered blanket around her in a corner of the tiny dwelling.

As another shiver wracks through her body you wrinkle your nose in disgust at her pride and inflexibility. She'd refused to live in _your_ actually somewhat _decent_ home when you offered. She'd scoffed and lectured you on how much trouble you could get in should someone find a missing woman hiding with you. The truth was she was too proud to accept charity, so instead she lives in a rickety wooden shack that hardly qualifies as livable and looks like it would collapse on top of her at any moment.

You had refused to ever pass through her doorway out of protest.

In your life you have known a lot of stubborn women. Once upon a time your sister had been the most stubborn. But than she disappeared and you were thrust into Hinamori Momo, who was stubborn in a very different way and you loved her too. As the years drew on Momo left you too, though she'd been right there. After she entered the Gotei 13 she was different, not all there; she often daydreamed while you were speaking to her and she would visit you less and less each year.

When it was finally your turn to take your place in the Gotei 13 you were immediately appointed the third seat of the tenth division and you became too tired to worry about stubborn women who'd left you behind. You were far too busy forcing your two alcoholic superiors to do paperwork.

Then one day as you were shoving Matsumoto-fukutaichou towards the office to join Kurosaki-Taichou in some much needed work she turned around and raised an eyebrow at him in annoyance, "You take things far too seriously, did your mother not hug you enough as a child?" She had crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot impatiently. You remember cursing her sobriety.

"No," you couldn't remember ever having a mother, "but my sister did." you murmured gloomily.

She sighed, patience exacerbated, "Alright that's it," she grabbed his ear and pulled him out into the streets of Sereitei. "We're going to go find your sister and she'll set your hardass, workaholic little tush straight." You growled at her calling you little.

"Good luck with that; she's dead." you lie, it's easier than telling her that you woke up one day, all alone in an alley unable to remember how you got there or where your sister had gone.

Matsumoto's face fell. "I'm so sorry," you wanted to scream at her, shout that you'd heard it all before and that you knew she only said it because she didn't know what else to say, that she didn't mean it, so she shouldn't pretend. But then you catch her expression; the look in her eyes.

It was a look that said 'I feel your pain,' and 'you're not alone.' Than she pulled you to her and you felt so, so warm and comforted in her embrace. For the first time in a long time you felt truly loved.

That day you welcomed yet another stubborn woman into your heart.

Matsumoto Rangiku was a different kind of stubborn than the rest; she was stubbornly obstinate when it came to what she wanted and if she cared about something no one could sway her decisions.

Than many, many years later you met a baby who touched you in some way that made you believe something had begun.

Than nearly a decade after, he met her again, that strange little girl, the daughter of the man you once considered a father. She was barely ten years old and already had the eyes of a woman with a burden. She had stubbornly demanded you help her, than later tell her where he brother had gone and what in god's name was going on. You refused than left, not knowing that in only a few years you would discover another stubborn woman within her.

Unfortunately a war happened, friends betrayed, terror reigned and you lost so much trust in people. But after a while the battles and heartbreak brought you closer to people you never thought you'd find anything in common; Izuru Kira; whom you once despised for his cowardice, Abarai Renji; an exceedingly brass ape of a man, Kurosaki Ichigo; the coarse man so rough around the edges he was as jagged as glass, and Kuchiki Rukia; who you soon realized was almost a perfect female version of yourself.

Living by the day, on the edge of death in the front lines with these people that you never bothered to know had taught you to trust again.

You came to realize that war made everyone a different kind of stubborn.

Finally, after so long, you were reunited with that same little girl from so many years ago and you are reminded of just what stubbornness is, you find that in the girl, in your student, in Kurosaki Karin and you find yourself often wondering if you just attract trouble and crazy, stubborn women somehow or if fate just finds it hilarious to watch women taller than you laugh while calling you a hobbit.

And you wondered at how this girl hadn't changed and yet at the same time felt totally different, not in a good way, or a bad one but different and you think that might be the best word to describe her anyway.

You try to ponder how you kept meeting these strange women and wonder why you haven't learned by now that making them a part of your life has only led to so much heartache.

You come to the conclusion that somehow your heart rationalizes that it's all worth it and that each and every one of those women have not only cared about you in some way, loved you in some way at one point or another, but they have also all had a hand in shaping who you are and leading you to where you are now.

And for the first time you know where that is; a time and place where you're actually happy, and for the first time in a long time you know it.

So you sigh and finally enter her shabby little hut, where it's no warmer than the autumn cold front outside and you lift Karin's quivering frame so that she's leaning against your warm chest, absorbing your body heat, finally beginning to relax her shaking. A small thank you for all she's unconsciously done for him.

Despite yourself, you smile.

As you close your eyes you know that most of the revelations will probably fade into an exhausted memory in the morning, too worn to be remembered because of the weight they carry.

Because the women you meet _do_ tend to be every bit as stubborn as you are.

The first; your sister, she was too stubborn to die, too stubborn to be selfish and too stubborn to let him fend for himself. She was too stubborn to give up her responsibilities. And because of that she was the best older sister any kid could ever ask for. Unfortunately, and you couldn't be sure but he somehow knew that that was what led to her disappearance.

The second; your first true friend, she was too stubborn to listen to him, too stubborn to let someone make her understand that the world wasn't all sunshine and roses, she was too stubborn to understand how naïve she was. And because of her naïve view of the world she was happy, because of her naivety she was gone, god knows where, with a traitor.

The third; someone who became your confidant, friend and surrogate older sister, she was stubbornly obstinate when it came to what she wanted and if she cared about something no one could sway her decisions. And because of that she was a force to be reckoned with, because of that she got her heart broken.

Then there was a period when you had let several stubborn people into your life, when you gained a real chance at having a life, when you had friends. Then you shut yourself away again when you discovered that the first friend you ever had had betrayed you…and you could have stopped it.

But finally she came along; and you still aren't really sure what she is to you, what will come of it. But you do know you care.

Because she too is a very stubborn young woman, in a very different way, in every way. She is stubbornly paranoid, stubborn in her opinions, too stubborn to listen to reason.

And he was so afraid that she'd end up like the others.

**A/N: Dun dun duuuuun anyone?**

**Review everybody! Flames are welcome yadda yadda.**

**-Siers**


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